A Blast From the Past
by RocketManLen
Summary: An accident brings someone from the past into Yuris' life, turning it upside-down. Rated M for violence in sections. Kei, Yuri, OC
1. A Blast From the Past

**Authors' Note – This story, and the ones that follow, are based upon the TV-series version of the characters, and use events taken from the series as background.**

 **Additional - I've done some 'tweaking' from the original story, which I wrote twenty years ago. I think this version 'works' better, but comments are always welcome.**

 **A Blast from the Past**

Prologue

In the years that followed the beginning of the 21st Century, Mankind had begun a steady expansion into space. By the year 2035, orbiting space factories had begun to produce enough goods to provide for all of the fifteen billion inhabitants of the planet Earth. Oceanic Farming projects ensured that all had enough to eat, and global communications networks permitted everyone to obtain a proper education. The destitute masses of the mid to late 20th Century no longer existed, and most people no longer had to resort to deception and treachery to obtain what they wished.

There were, however, still those who sought to deprive others in order to make a profit...

Part One - A.D. 2090  


"This is David Jacobs for the World Information Service," The reporters dull monotone filled the meeting room, "with an exclusive from the Moon. Today, July 5, 2090, HyperTech Industries announced that it will begin testing on its latest development; the first working Faster-Than-Light propulsion device; later this week. Doctor William Galet, head of Research and Development for HyperTech and developer of the device, earlier told this reporter that, if successful, the drive would make interplanetary and interstellar journeys virtually instantaneous. No longer would spacecraft require months or even years to reach their destinations, and star probes could be manned, with travel times not exceeding a few years. Rumour has it that there are also plans to test a thruster engine that has no external exhaust ports, but Dr. Galet refused to comment on this, stating security restrictions.  


"In other news..."

The vice-president of HyperTech Industries snapped off the power switch, and the image faded from the screen. He turned to his aides. "Gentlemen, this presents us with a dilemma. If Doctor Galet has perfected a reactionless drive, then ships will no longer be required to carry several times their weight in reaction mass."

"ABSURD!" screamed the Assistant R&D Chief. "All present-day physics says that Newtons Laws still apply.. A ship can't move without some kind of reaction to push it!"

"Nevertheless," muttered the Marketing Director, "If such a drive could be produced, HyperTech would surely go bankrupt." The sale of reaction mass, ammonia or methane scooped from Jupiters' atmosphere, amounted to a  
significant portion of HyperTechs' business. "We should consider suppressing this technology."

"Dammit, I've tried." The Chief was nearly screaming. "I've done everything but threaten Galet to try to convince him to keep this secret, but he won't budge. Keeps babbling about Mankinds 'Destiny in the Stars'. I don't think there's any way of shutting him up about this; other than killing him."

"There is another way."

That quiet utterance brought silence to the room. All eyes focused on the speaker.

"Friends, I have already considered this, and have set a plan in motion that will not only keep the reactionless drive from being produced, but will give us the opportunity to persuade the good doctor to keep his high-handed ideas to himself." _And finally get him out of my hair_ , was the unspoken comment from the president of HyperTech.

* * *

Four hundred thousand kilometres away, aboard the test vehicle _Star Seeker_ in a high Lunar orbit, William Galet (Bill to one and all) stared at one of the control room monitors with a look of sorrow.

Janie Galet, Bill's sister-in-law, had a most unreadable face. He couldn't tell if she was angry or disappointed. Either way, she had a slight advantage. "But Bill, Mike's birthday is in three days. He expects his favourite uncle to be there. He won't like it if you miss his big day because of the test."

"Janie, look. The test is supposed to take place tomorrow. I have to be here to supervise the installation of the last components of the Jump Drive."

"I realize that, but WHY do you insist on testing it yourself? It isn't your job, and you have a whole army of test pilots willing to take this job."

Bill sighed to himself. "Janie, I've said this to you all before. Nobody knows all the devices on the ship as well as I do, and nobody knows about my little toy that'll be tested too. The test crew is competent, yes, but they'd be lost if something went wrong with that."

She gave him a look that faintly resembled disgust. "All right, all right. I can't stop you. But remember this - Mikey is counting on you. If you miss his birthday for the sake of your own ego..."

"Not ego, Janie. I'm doing this so humanity can take its place in the stars."

"..or whatever you think you're doing it for - Well, don't expect much sympathy from a ten-year-old." With that, she broke the connection.

 _Why can't anyone understand_ , he mused. _The Jump Drive and the Quantum Thruster would open up the stars to Man. We could become a star-spanning species, and realize our true destiny_.

He flicked on the commlink to the tech crew. "Al, how are things progressing?"

A hollow-sounding voice came back to him. "Almost done, doctor. All systems will be active for the test tomorrow." Al Davis was outside the hull, fitting the last components of the Quantum Drive into place.

"Good. I've spoken to the orbital monitoring stations. The test will begin at 0900 tomorrow."

"Yessir."

* * *

The _Star Seeker_ did not move out of Lunar orbit under its own power. The powers-that-be at HyperTech had decreed that the testing take place far away from inhabited areas, and the Moon was the second most populous world in the entire Solar System. Bill had argued that the drive was perfectly safe, and that it HAD to be tested deep within at least the Moons' gravity, or there would be no way of knowing for sure that it would function properly in higher gravity. He had argued for nothing - their minds were made up. _Ignorant office boys,_ Bill fumed. _Couldn't see their way out of a plastic bag, and I have to take orders from them!_

At 0855 he opened a channel to the research centre on the Moon. "Al, can you hear me?" That wasn't really necessary, as the hyperchannel commlink he was using had been installed in countless spacecraft since its 'discovery' three years ago. Part of his high school science project, it allowed communication across the system with no noticeable time lag. It had also helped him formulate the equations that made the Jump Drive possible.

"Right here, Bill. We're getting telemetry from your computer, everything looks good from here."

"Okay. First off, we'll run through the Quantum Thruster test series. I'll run through a series of maneuvers to go through all possible motions. I'll run it up to five gees thrust." _The internal gravity field could easily handle ten, but let's take no chances yet. Remember, you've got a birthday to attend._

"Roger that, Bill. Anytime you're ready," came the reply.

He punched a series of codes into the computer, and the ship leapt into the darkness. Performing a series of turns, twists and rolls that would give a professional acrobat nausea, the ship finally settled into a straight forward thrust out to the Belt area.

Hardly able to contain his elation, Bill hit the arm of his crash chair with his palm. "Hot Damn, Al. It works! I'm getting normal internal radiation readings, too. No ill effects whatsoever!"

"Congrats, doc." Davis was a bit dejected at the prospect of this, because he didn't like what he'd have to do if the next test was successful - he LIKED doc Galet.

"Okay, Al. Now for the big one. Jump Drive test number one coming up." The first test was a short, in-system jump, to see if it worked within planetary systems. The target was Pluto; now the farthest planet from Earth. "I've entered the coordinates, on my mark. Three.. Two.. One.. JUMP!"

There was a very slight feeling of disorientation, but it passed so quickly that it was hardly noticed. The dark, cold surface of Pluto was before him, a mere five hundred kilometres away.

Bill was in heaven. "Test Number One successful!" He was nearly crying. "The computer will handle the second test - this jump will take me out fifty-one light-years, and I'll be back in time for the news! Computer engaged... Al, what's wrong?"

This because Al Davis had suddenly given him a sorrowful look. "I'm sorry, doc," was all he said as he hit a button at his console.

The ship lurched under a sudden burst of thrust. Bill was slammed face-first into the console in front of him. The computer was still counting down to Jump, but below it was displayed...

 **MALFUNCTION! Warp Field Error**

Dazed and bleeding from his nose, he reached to hit the ABORT switch. He missed, activating the emergency beacon instead. He reached again...

The computer count reached Zero and the universe caved in.

* * *

In the months that followed, many changes occurred. Al Davis was charged with sabotage - he surrendered himself in a fit of guilt. Admitting that he had planted a device to melt one of the control connections, he also told Police who had ordered its installation. The President of HyperTech was subsequently charged with murder. However, since an intensive search of the area produced no sign of the ship or the doctor, the charge was changed to voluntary manslaughter and he was sentenced to twenty years. Because Bill Galet did not keep records well, the designs for the Quantum Thruster and the Jump Drive were lost. It took twenty-one years for the warp drive to be re-created. The Quantum Drive was never repeated.

Bill Galet was never seen again...

Part Two - A.D. 2141

Kei and Yuri were on their way to Vanir.

Their latest case complete, they were headed towards their favourite vacation spot. They could really use one, too; in the process of completing the investigation, they had (quite inadvertently) triggered a booby-trapped nuclear device that devastated a nearby city. They caught the guy they were after, but they also caught it from Director Goulet when they returned. "Half a million casualties?!" he had screamed, "I would hardly call that a success! Just because the Central Computer has cleared you every time something like this happens, I expect you to use a little more restraint in your investigations. This continuing slaughter is completely uncalled for!"

"Jeez, why do we always end up like this? It wasn't OUR fault that nuke blew; just bad luck, that's what it was." Kei was relaxing with her feet up on her side of the control console. After all, Yuri was doing the flying. "And besides, didn't we get the jerk? He had no cause to complain!"

Yuri looked up from the scanners long enough to whisper "But Kei, it was partly our fault. After all, it was you that wrecked the detonator with that shot."

"That doesn't matter! How am I supposed to control every single shot I fire? They were shooting at us from all directions - maybe they did it themselves!" _Sure, Yuri. Blame me,_ she fumed. _You were there too. Maybe you shot it._ "Anyway, we've got two weeks vacation out of it. That isn't too bad."

"Well, maybe it'll go better than the last time." giggled Yuri.

"And what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Kei shouted.

"Don't forget, Kei - you put that guy in the hospital last time."

"Hey, he deserved it. He tried to paw me!" Which resulted in his being thrown into a synthocrete wall. "I want to see if the cracks are still there where he hit."

"Sure, sure. They haven't patched it in the three months we've been away. Kei, could you raise Traffic Control, please. Something seems to be wrong with the scanner."

"Yeah, yeah. You just hit the wrong button, eh?" taunted Kei as she keyed in the sequence to call Vanir Station Control. A moment later the comm screen lit up with a face she hadn't seen before. _Must be new to the station,_ thought Kei as she drank in his features. _Cute, too - I'll try my charm on him_. Lowering her voice a bit, she whispered, "Hello, there. My girlfriend and I are having a teensy bit of trouble with our sensors. Could you help us?"

The young man flushed a little and, after trying to swallow his tongue, he got out "Um, uh, yes. I have a.. uh.. fix on you. I'll need your ship's name and registry for the report."

"Certainly." she said, pleased that he was so flustered. "Our ship is a WWWA scout vessel, registry Amor, name Lovely Angel..."

"AAAIEEEE!" he screamed. "The Dirty Pair!"

"Don't call us that!" Kei screamed right back at him.

"EEK! Uh, yes, yes. Right. Yes ma'am. Um, we show you inbound in a normal heading. Proceed to..." Suddenly the screen flashed red. The flight controller screamed again, and was cut off.

Huh?

"KEI! Oh no - look!" Yuri was paler than usual as she pointed to the magnified visual image of Vanir Station. The screen showed a ball of purple and orange flame where the station had been a second ago. Not only that, but there was a large dark shape in the middle. It was too big to be a lifeboat; perhaps a ship had survived.

"Kei, something's funny about that ship. It's travelling too fast to have just launched from the station, and it's putting out a really old-fashioned emergency beacon."

"Humn. That IS weird. Let's move to intercept; I'll call HQ."

* * *

"WHAT?! You destroyed an entire station WITHOUT EVEN BEING THERE?" Goulet seethed.

"No, no. It wasn't us. It was another ship. Something went wrong with our scanners. We called the station for aid, and BOOM - gone." Kei was almost in tears - that gorgeous guy, dead. "It must have blasted the station to clear its path. It's heading out of the system, and we're on our way to intercept it."

Goulet buried his head in his hands. _Why me?_ "All right. Intercept and board, but do try to keep the losses to a minimum, CLEAR?"

"Y-yes, sir. As always." It did her nerves no end of good, getting yelled at BEFORE a mission. "Yuri, how soon can we dock?"

"We can't." Came the muffled reply.

"WHAT?" That was impossible, all ships had docking equipment.

"That ship is old, Kei, practically an antique. It doesn't have docking devices. We'll have to go through the airlock." Yuri was just finishing putting on the helmet of her pressure suit. "Mugi will be monitoring us, there should be no trouble." She waited while Kei put on her suit, and they both headed for the Angel's airlock.

As they jetted towards the ship, Kei couldn't help but wonder. "What if it's a stolen ship, and someone is using it to get us?"

"Oh, come on, Kei." groaned Yuri. "If anyone wanted us dead, there are easier ways than trapping us in an antique ship. And they'd wind up regretting it if they captured us. Take it easy." With that, they were at the vessel's lock.

Yuri pondered it for a moment. "Wow, is this great. It's better than touring the SpaceFlight Museum. Okay. Hmm, not even a combination lock." She pressed the OPEN button, and the outer door slid into its recess without even the vibration that should be evident in a ship this old.

The ship wasn't dark. In fact, it was quite well-lit. As the outer door closed and the pressurization sequence began, Yuri looked around in amazement. "Immaculate," she muttered under her breath. "Somebody went to a lot of trouble for this, whoever did it." She turned around and spotted something else - a two-piece pressure suit, the kind used in the days before flexible seals were developed. "Either this guy is very rich, or..."

"Or VERY loony." Kei completed the sentence. "In either case, I think the WWWA is going to have some rather harsh words with whomever it is. Come on, tourist. There's more to see." She drew her gun as the inner door slid open, again with no sound or vibration. The corridor led left and right, right being the direction of the control room. With her  
cannon/pistol leading the way, and Yuri tagging timidly behind, Kei headed right.

The control room was an array of flashing lights and computer screens. Not tridees, though, there was no way to tell if this was original or a refit. One screen stood out, though. It displayed one rather ominous word - **Malfunction**.

Someone was sitting in the crash chair.

Slumped was more apt, though Kei as she moved in closer. His straight, light hair covered most of his face where it lay on the control panel, and his left hand was inches away from two switches - one marked ABORT and the other marked .

"So here's our rich kook. Looks like whatever he did took him out, too." A smirk crossed her face as she started to lever him back into the seat.

Yuri moved to the other side of the chair to help her partner. "Well, he isn't dead, just out." With that, their mystery man was upright in the chair, and they got a good look at his face. _Strange,_ thought Yuri, _he looks vaguely familiar_. As she bent towards him to get a closer look, she caught a glimpse of his nametag. She then did something quite natural - she screamed.

Forgetting she was in a pressure suit, Kei's hands shot to her ears, trying to drown out her partner's cries. When Yuri finally stopped, it was her turn. "So, what was that for, eh?"

Yuri was rooted to the spot, shaking and pointing. Kei followed her finger to the man's nametag.

It read - GALET, B.

* * *

"That's right, sir. B. Galet. He looks about the right age, too." Kei had returned to the Angel to report what had happened.

Goulet was in no mood for this. "And you think this man, whom you yourself reported as dead in that affair on Poisonville, is the one responsible for the destruction of the station?"

"It's possible. Although we didn't find any weapons on the ship, he could have dropped an H-E missile before impact." Kei knew she was grasping at straws, but there was no other reasonable explanation. _If he had a missile to drop, we would have found the catches, at least!_ "He's unconscious, possibly injured. We'd like permission to tow his ship to Vanir Spaceport and take him to a hospital."

"Very good." _Well, at least they ought to be able to stay out of trouble, looking after him for a while._ "I'm dispatching a tech team to go over the ship. When he recovers, I'll want you two there - I want him to know how deep in trouble he is."

After Goulet broke the connection, Kei muttered, "Stay with him, HUH! I won't be able to drag her away." Yuri had practically begged to stay on the ship while they took it in tow.

* * *

The counter reached Zero.

The entire universe seemed to tear itself to shreds and collapse on top of him. For what seemed like forever, strangely distorted images of memory flashed before him - friends, enemies, family - all twisted and blended into one seething mass.

Suddenly, everything straightened out, and he had a clear vision of two people, two very close people. _Janie, Mikey._ The memory quickly faded. _Don't go, please! Oh God. I'm sorry, Mikey._

He opened his eyes. Before his eyes could focus, he saw dark hair framing a light face. "Janie, help me." He felt his eyes water as he choked out the words. "I'm sorry, Janie. Help me, please."

"Billy, are you all right?"

Those words brought him out of it. He again opened his eyes.

She couldn't have been more than twenty. Seated in the chair beside his bed, she was holding his hand tightly. _What the hell?_ He looked at her, and said, "Where am I?" as he started to rise.

His head swam with the motion, and that stranger beside him gently pushed his shoulders down. "Take it easy, Billy." she said. "You're at the Vanir Central Hospital. You've been out since we found you two days ago."

 _Vanir? Two days?_ "What happened? What's going on?" Something was wrong, but he had no idea what - yet.

"You tell us." Came a strong voice from across the room. Bill shifted his attention from space to fire. "You come tearing in from out of nowhere in an antique ship, you wipe out an orbital relay station and kill over a hundred personnel, all the while transmitting an archaic emergency code. Just what the hell did you have in mind, Mister?"

He could barely keep up with her flurry of accusations, his mind was racing at what she had said. "Antique ship?! Are you joking? That ship just happens to be THE latest in space technology! And while we're at it; who the HELL are you two, anyway?!"

"As if you don't know! I'm Kei. She's Yuri." She was pointing to the one beside him, who now stared at him with a shocked look on her face. "We're WWWA troubleshooters. And boy, are you in trouble."

Now her partner spoke, in a tone that was sad in a way. "Billy, how could you forget me? We've known each other since we were little kids on the planet Yocha."

 _What the...?_ "I still don't know what you're talking about. Vanir, Yocha, WWWA? I was born on Earth." Something hit him. "We're not anywhere near Earth, are we?"

 _Bumbling idiot._ Kei cursed. _Don't know WHAT she sees in a nutcracker like this._ "Of course not! You're on Vanir - fourth planet in the Delanis system. Earth is about fifty or so light-years away."

"Delanis system. Fifty light ... " It finally clicked. "IT WORKS!" He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "It actually works! Yeeeaah-HAAA! Wait til I get home! Not only did it work, but I get to make first contact with an alien race! Oh, man. Nobody is gonna believe this."

 _Crackers,_ Kei thought again as Yuri fell backwards onto the floor at his sudden tirade. _Absolutely out of it._ "Hold on there, boyo. First off, we aren't aliens. Second, what 'works'?"

"My Jump Drive. I was in the middle of testing it when something blew and knocked me cold. Hot Damn, it even works when the field generator screws up! This is incredible, absolutely incredible."

Yuri was just climbing back into her chair. "Billy, what are you talking about? You know as well as either of us that all ships, including ships from Earth, have had warp drives for thirty years now."

"And as for your 'screw up'," Kei put in, "your warp-in cost a hundred people their lives. You've got a lot of explaining to do."

 _A hundred people, dead? Wait... they know about Earth?!_ "Just a minute. You still haven't told me how you know me, just some mumbo-jumbo from you," he looked toward Yuri, "about growing up on some planet called 'Yocha'. I was born on Earth; so what..."

Both girls were about to answer when a nurse entered the room. "Um, excuse me." he said, somewhat nervously. "But now that the patient is awake, we need him to answer some questions for our records."

"Sure. No problem," said Yuri as she relinquished her seat.

The nurse sat down and took out a pen. "Now, Mr. Galet. I need your full name, United Galactica Ident number, and date of birth."

Bill laid back, resting his head in his hands. "Hokay. Full name William Daniel Galet..."

 _Funny,_ Yuri mused. _Billy never told me he had a middle name._

"... I don't know what a United Galactica Ident is; my UN registry is GA2095584 - that'll have to do. I was born March 8th, Twenty Sixty-Five."

The nurse looked at him mockingly. "Well, happy birthday then. I must say, you're looking rather healthy for a seventy-six-year-old."

That was too much for Yuri. She collapsed.

* * *

He didn't see the girls again until two days later. And they brought someone else with them - a tall fellow who wore aviator glasses. "Doctor Galet," he said, "my name is Kyarico. I'm the Assistant Director of the Worlds Welfare Work Association."

 _Worlds..?_ "Oh, this 'Three-W-A' your friends here kept talking about. I presume you're their boss?"

Kyarico adjusted his collar and coughed. "Ahem. Yes, in a manner of speaking. I've been in charge of the technical team that was inspecting your ship. We've come up with a few details we'd like to ask you about."

"Sure. Fire away."

"Yes. Well. Let me see here." He fiddled with his noteboard for a moment. "Ah, yes. First off, though; You are Doctor William Galet, late of HyperTech Industries?"

"Yup. The one and only. No need to beat around the bush, I know I've been away a long time." _Long enough to not worry about formalities, anyway._ Yuri had told him how Janie, Mike, and Mike's wife had perished in a shuttle crash two years earlier, and how Mike's son Billy had died in an earlier 'incident'. Like it or not, he was the last surviving member of his family.

"Certainly. Straightforward you want it. We recovered your ship's log some time ago, and have spent up until just a few hours ago decoding the data. It seems that, when your 'Jump Drive' malfunctioned, it projected you here. The instability in the warp field made the journey seem instantaneous, but in fact you were travelling at the speed of light only. When you reached your programmed warp-out point, the distorted field encroached on the traffic station the Lovely Angels were approaching - disintegrating it."

"So you're the 'Lovely Angels', eh?" Bill looked at the two girls and smiled. "How fitting. Angels of mercy, I'd say."

Yuri hid her eyes and blushed. _He might not be Billy, but he's sweet anyway._ Kei just said "Humph!"

Kyarico ignored the comment. "Also, a great deal of machinery in your ship was unidentifiable. What was its purpose?"

"I call it a Quantum Thruster. It's a kind of reactionless drive."

"REACTIONLESS DRIVE?!" cried the Pair in unison.

"The records of the press report had nothing in them about this." Kyarico responded, astonished but more able to maintain a businesslike demeanour.

"Not surprising. I kept it a secret from the press, for the simple fact that most spaceflight companies in my time would have wanted it suppressed."

"Suppressed? WHY?" Yuri squealed, unaware of the business practices of the late 21st century.

But Kei used to be a history buff. E _specially ancient weapons._ "Money," she remarked.

Bill finished. "Precisely. The sale of reaction mass was - and still is, I presume - a very lucrative enterprise. A good many companies would go bankrupt without the sale of gasses to make spacecraft go."

"Including HyperTech." Kyarico added. "The police data files show that, shortly before HyperTech went under in 2092, they were charged with industrial sabotage and attempted murder. Your attempted murder."

"My...?" That explained a lot - particularly Als' final words. "Those dirty BASTARDS! They tried to off me just to maintain their stinking profit margin!? They'd better like Hell - I hope they ROT there!" He got out of bed and stormed to the window. "Out!" He screamed. "GET OUT! NOW!"

Kei and Kyarico left right away. Yuri lingered for a moment. "Bill.." she muttered, her voice barely audible.

"Yuri, please." He was no longer shouting, but he felt terrible. "Just leave me be for a while. Those greedy, ignorant morons tore me away from my friends, my family, everything I knew, just for their own personal gain. Just let me be angry, okay?" _What am I doing?_ was the thought that crossed his mind. _Nobody deserves this kind of treatment, particularly somebody trying to be nice to me._ "I'm sorry, Yuri. Just go, please."

Fighting back tears, Yuri turned and left.

* * *

Two days and a completely thorough (and totally uncomfortable) battery of tests later, he was pronounced completely fit, and allowed to leave the hospital. The only problem was, he had nowhere to go.

That problem, he found, had been solved by Mr. Kyarico. Upon leaving the hospital, he was taken by aircar to the OceanView Hotel. Surprisingly, Yuri met him there. More surprisingly, Kei didn't. "Where's your partner?" was the first obvious question that hit him.

"Oh, she's making other arrangements. Come on, I'll take you to your room." She grabbed his hand and swung him towards the elevator.

'Suite' was more appropriate. _My God, I've never seen a place this well done up!_ Then, "Just how am I expected to pay for all of this? I'm broke, out of work, and I don't take charity."

"Well," Yuri giggled, a sly grin crossing her face, "you aren't exactly broke." She started to explain: Since there was no recovered body (or assorted bits of it) when he vanished, he could not be declared legally dead, given the nature of the experiment - he might have shown up a year or so after being declared dead. Besides which, his sister-in-law didn't want to file for the death certificate. Compound interest on his savings and investments resulted in his being rather well off. "Besides, you're a guest of the 3WA, and they certainly aren't a charity."

"Okay! Okay!" He quickly backtracked. "Funny that I'd be considered a guest." _Especially since my untimely arrival resulted in the deaths of an entire space station crew!_ Oh, well. "I don't suppose this place comes equipped with a change of clothes." He was still clad in the flight suit he had donned the other day ( _Fifty years ago, dammit!)_ and it was not noted for its comfort.

Yuri beamed. "What a great idea! We can go shopping!" Ignoring his repeated "But..", she grabbed his arm, yanked him around towards the door, and shoved him into the hall again.

* * *

The rest of the day passed very quickly, even for the thirty-hour Vanir day. After outfitting him so that he didn't stand out quite so much in a crowd, Yuri took Bill on a tour of the city. After seeing some of the wonders they took for granted in the hospital, he felt that he was ready for anything. _Well, can't fault me for being wrong._ Floating cars that used anti-gravity instead of hoverjets, single buildings the size of cities (arcologies were not a new idea, but to see one so BIG!). And the SpacePort! Vanir was one of the few planets that sported a SkyStalk for ships not equipped to land. He had asked Yuri to take him to see the Star Seeker (now his personal ship; interstellar salvage laws being what they were), and he had spotted it from several miles away. He was trying to see the roof - he looked up - and up - and UP! until he finally gave up. Then, just to relax, they went to a holographic theatre. The images were so lifelike that he found he had to restrain himself from reaching out and trying to touch the characters to make sure they weren't there.

Totally exhausted and thoroughly impressed, they ended up back at the hotel, Yuri pouring wine while Bill sprawled out on the sofa, half asleep. "Only fifty years. Hard to fathom that mankind has come so far in so short a time. I wish I'd helped make it happen, but I'm glad I got a chance to see it."

Yuri handed him a glass and sat down next to him. "Well, you did have a big part in it. Your communicator system, for instance. And you did prove that warp drives were practical."

"True, but I paid a terrible price." He stood up and started to pace the room. "An eternity of nightmares during the jump, my nephew died without knowing what happened to me, most of my friends and acquaintances gone - I'm all alone." He stopped and stared dejectedly out the window at the skyline. "I had the good fortune to be shown the worlds of the future, but it almost feels like I'm really an alien here - an outsider. I have to learn everything again, and I don't know if I can do it."

Yuri got up and stood behind him. Placing her hand on his shoulder, she said "But you do have friends here, Bill. Kei might not show it, but she does like you. And I..." She paused for a moment, considering her words. "I knew Billy as a child, but not as an adult. I'd like to think he was a lot like you." He turned around to face her. "I care about you, Bill.  
It's silly, but maybe you were meant to be here, to give us a chance to comfort each other."

Now it was his turn to blush. "Yuri, I - I don't know what to say. I..."

She moved into his arms and their lips met...

* * *

The screen showed two silhouettes by a window.

Parked across the street from the hotel, in an unassuming hoverlimo, he stared intently at the two forms within on his monitor. He knew his job, and now his target was occupied and not paying attention. He spoke into a small microphone. "Gas the room, now. Wait five minutes, then bring him to me." He waited for the reply to come over his earphone, then signalled the driver to leave.

* * *

A faint hissing noise caused him to pull away. Glancing around, he saw nothing unusual, until he noticed one of the lamps emitting a faint, smoky trail.

Yuri wanted to pull him closer, but saw his look of concern. "Bill, what's wrong?" She followed his gaze until she saw it too. She also noticed the unmistakable smell. GAS! "We have to get out of here!" she screamed, but it was too late. Whatever it was, it acted incredibly fast; coughing uncontrollably, Bill fell. Yuri had barely enough time to activate her earring-commlink's emergency signal before she, too, passed out.

Moments later, two men wearing gas masks and armed with tranquilizer guns entered the room through the side window. They looked at Yuri on the floor, and Bill doubled over on the table, and quickly advanced on their quarry.

They were out on the street when they signalled their employer. "Mission accomplished, sir. Proceeding to the holding station." They entered a van, and sped off.

* * *

Yuri came to with a splitting headache and the sight of Kei staring at her. "Ah, you're awake, eh? Get a little drunk, did we?" Kei jokingly accused.

"Verrry funny, Kei. We were gassed. I.." She stood up and looked around the room. "BILL!" He wasn't there. "KEI! Someone took Bill! We have to find him!"

"Take it easy, we will." _She's always flying off the handle._ "I'll call Mugi. The Angel will be fired up and ready to go by the time we get there. You DID remember to put that tracer in his wallet, didn't you?"

"Y-yes." Yuri sniffled. _It's happening all over again._ She thought. _First Billy, now Bill... I'll be damned if I lose another good friend!_

"Good. You did something right - finally." She shrugged off a murderous glance from Yuri. "Come on, then. Let's get going!" She said as they bolted for the door.

* * *

Bill awoke in what looked to be a warehouse. _Melodramatic,_ he thought, _but effective._ He looked around to see what kind of trouble he was in.

He was strapped to what looked like one of those laboratory pallets – the kind that were popular in old Frankenstein movies. He was facing a grey-haired man wearing what looked to be a military uniform. He was flanked by six men with rifles. The man strode towards him. "Good morning, Doctor Galet. I'm Commander Edward Jackson, Space Special Forces. I hope we haven't caused you too much discomfort."

"No, not at all. I love being gassed and tied up." Bill muttered sarcastically.

"Yes. Well, we had to separate you from your companion. This seemed the most effective way."

 _YURI!_ His mind screamed at him. "If you hurt her -"

"You are in no position to threaten, Doctor. Your friend is unharmed. She was not important to our purpose, and you cannot be found anymore. You, however, are very important to us."

 _I am?_ "So you were after me, specifically? For what? If you know me, you know I'm the victim of an old warp-drive experiment."

"And that, my good doctor, is why you are important."

"WHAT? How could my accident be important to anyone?"

Jackson turned to his left, grasping his hands behind his back. "Not your accident, but its results, caught my attention. Your 'accident' succeeded in wiping out an orbital station at close range, and the method of attack was undetectable. If that could be harnessed, controlled, its destructive capability would be unparalleled."

 _Damn, it always comes down to this._ "You want me to develop a weapon based on my Jump Drive experiment." He said it very low, hoping it would be ignored.

"Precisely. A weapon that utilizes a starships own warp drive would be easy to conceal and difficult to guard against. I want that weapon, doctor, and I want you to produce it for me."

"Why am I not surprised? You have to have your little toys of destruction. Who gets it - Earth? One of the independent worlds?"

His captor grunted. "Why, whomever can pay my price. Development will take quite a bit of capital, and I need some way to recoup my losses."

"With a tidy profit on the side, no doubt. It always seems to come down to that, doesn't it. Money. I almost get blown out of space for it, and now I'm being held so you can force me to get you more of it. Well, you can just FORGET IT! There's no way I'd give you something that powerful, just for you to go and sell it to the highest bidder. Your dreams of riches and glory end here!" _Cripes!_ He thought. _I'm starting to sound like some cheap film actor!_

Jackson's eyes narrowed. _Oh, shit. I've done it now._ "Well, in that case, I see we have no alternative here." He raised his pistol to Bill's forehead. "If you won't develop it for me, I'll just have to make sure that you don't develop it for the WWWA."

He was about to pull the trigger when an explosion rocked the room. The loading doors toppled away, and Bill saw two familiar forms.

"This is the WWWA! We're the Lovely Angels, and you're all under arrest!" Kei's voice rang out like crystal in the smoky haze.

Jackson looked at them with terror. "Oh, NO!" he cried. "It's the Dirty Pair! OPEN FIRE!"

"Yuri! Look out!" Bill managed to shout before a series of laser blasts engulfed the area. Straining to see, he caught a glimpse of two forms diving for cover behind a stack of crates as the space they had occupied moments ago erupted in a blast of killing energy. From behind one of the stacks came a volley of return fire, while something that left a trail of eddies in the smoke came from the other stack. Whatever it was, it seemed to touch three of the soldiers - just before they screamed in agony and fell. Their dead fingers stiffened on the triggers of their guns, letting loose a volley of shots that ignited a nearby set of crates marked 'DANGER: HYPER-EXPLOSIVES'.

Two more fell prey to laser blasts, and Yuri popped up beside him. "BILL!" Her eyes were watering as she made herself heard over the din.

"Yuri! How did you find me?" He was glad to see her, but somewhat startled that she was here.

"I'll explain later! We have to get you out of here!" She cut his bonds, helped him up, and made for the exit.

Jackson stopped them halfway there. "No, dammit! I won't let you have him! I'll kill all of you before that happens!" He half raised his gun before he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He started to turn, and a credit-card-sized streak neatly sliced through his neck. His mouth opened to speak, but nothing but blood came from it. He fell, his head bouncing off towards the back of the building.

Yuri caught her Bloody Card and stuffed it back into her pouch. "Good Grief!" Bill muttered, "What the hell was that?" Yuri just grinned. "I'll tell you later. Right now we have to get out of here." She grabbed his elbow and sprang for the spot where the Lovely Angel hovered just inches above the ground. Kei was already inside, urging them on with words they couldn't hear from where they were. They jumped into the open bay door and the Angel streaked off with a trail of fire.

They were ten kilometres away when the warehouse exploded. The fireball encompassed ten square blocks and rose hundreds of meters into the air. The three humans and Mugi stared silently at the disaster.

"Oh, boy." Yuri groaned. "Here we go again."

"So much for a relaxing vacation." Kei volunteered.

"Now I know..." Bill said quietly.

Both girls looked at him. "Know what?" they both asked.

Bill gave them a wide smile. "Why he called you two the 'Dirty Pair'. I take it this happens often?"

Nobody spoke to him on the way back to the Spaceport.

* * *

The next day, Kei, Yuri, and Bill were in Goulet's office. Goulet was yelling again.

"An entire industrial complex ruined, two THOUSAND dead, and three hundred million in damages?! This, from a rescue op you took part in WHILE ON VACATION?"

"But sir, it wasn't our fault. Honest!" came the stereo reply.

Bill tried to stifle a laugh, and failed. _They must practice that line._ But Goulet wasn't finished.

"It doesn't seem to matter. The Central Computer has cleared you of responsibility - AGAIN! - so it's out of my hands." He turned to Bill. "The computer also cleared you of responsibility in the destruction of the Vanir Station. It also recommends that I hire you as a member of our own research team. After going over your credentials, I concur. Will you take the job?"

Yuri gripped his hand as he pondered the question. "On one condition. I don't want to build any weapons - the ones you have now seem pretty good as they are." He didn't want to be the cause of any more deaths.

"Of course. Your first assignment would be the full development of your Quantum Thruster, installing it in our ships and publishing the theories. After that, you can pick and choose your projects."

That suited him perfectly. "Fine. You've got yourself a new researcher. I'll start work in three weeks."

 _Three..?_ "Well, we had hoped that you would start right away."

"Sorry, but a lot has happened since I arrived. I think I need a vacation. Three weeks should just about do the trick." He turned to Kei and Yuri. "Would you two ladies care to escort me around the galaxy?"

Kei grinned at Yuri. Yuri grinned at Kei as she took Bill's proffered elbow. "We'd love to." she purred as they walked towards the door. She turned to Goulet and said, "See you in three weeks, mister Director, sir."

As the door slid shut behind them, Goulet rested his head on the desk and tore at the hair on the back of his head. "Why me, Lord? Why me?"

 **-FIN-**


	2. The RockShip Crisis

"Like a Walnut, the Rock holds a Surprise Inside!"

 **The RockShip Crisis**

The asteroid did not follow the normal rules for asteroids - it was not moving in a fixed orbit around the central star of this system. Instead, it was heading out of the system at a high speed. Also, it was not riding the plane of the ecliptic - it was heading towards the North Pole of the system (that is, it was moving almost vertical to the normal planetary orbits.) They had been following it for nearly two days now, and they were still baffled.

"What do you make of it, Bob?" Crusher Wayne asked his partner.

"Damned if I know, Wayne. Could be a rogue from outsystem, I think."

"Well, if it is, it sure has travelled a helluva long way." He had already projected its path backwards, and found no systems within over a hundred light-years along it route. "Let's go in closer, I want a good look at that thing..."

Spraying fire from its attitude jets, the Crusher ship edged closer to the anomaly. From a distance of five kilometres, some details began to come into focus.

The leading edge of the rock was rough - not smooth. After spending a century in interstellar space, one would have expected the surface to be polished smooth by gas and dust impacting the surface at regular intervals. "Well, maybe it got turned around somehow." Bob mused. "Let's slow up a bit - enough to let the trailing section pass us." Again the attitude jets flared, and the ship eased itself down to a hair less than ten percent of lightspeed. Within moments they were looking at it from behind. The main drive motors then ignited, bringing them back up to a matched speed.

As the rock wall moved past their viewport, more puzzles became apparent. "Hey, that crevice looks too regular for a fault line - it almost looks like a... a door!" Wayne was astonished. "Who the hell would want to set an asteroid colony in motion? Warp engines are better for travel between stars.."

"Well, maybe they don't have warp..." He stopped. _That's crazy.. Every system in the galaxy has warp technology. At least - every HUMAN one_. "Hey, maybe that's an ALIEN ship! We might be looking at the first real evidence of non-human life in the galaxy!"

They didn't have time to ponder the ramifications of their observations, for the trailing end of the asteroid-ship was now before them, along with the proof they needed - three large reaction ports carved into the rock. Just then, the computer beeped for attention. "We're being scanned," Wayne told his partner, "And it's a HUMAN sensor beam!" Their attention turned to the asteroid - those ports were starting to shine from within. That could mean only one thing - whatever drive system they were using, it was activating! And they were right behind one of the jets! "Damn! Let's get away from this thing!" Bob was screaming.

Too late.

A stream of gas the temperature of a stars' core shot out of the opening, touching the ship and vaporizing it almost instantly. The two Crushers barely had time to feel pain before they became nothing more than some slightly cooler atoms in the drive flame of the asteroid. Seconds later, the flame came to an abrupt end, and something incredible happened - the asteroid vanished...

* * *

Director Goulet trembled as he read the report from the WWWA Central Computer. _Why them? Of all the people to assign this investigation, WHY does it always pick THEM?_ He went over the noteboard scan again -

W-W-W-A Central Computer Information

Subject - Destruction of Crusher vessel: 'Thor'

Details - Ship presumed destroyed while investigating abnormal  
behaviour of an asteroid in the Sigma Deltonis star  
system - method of destruction - unknown.  
Asteroid's last recorded path - towards the  
Epsilon Lambda system. Supplementary data to follow.

Recommended troubleshooting team - Lovely Angels.

End Report.

"Damn." He had hoped not to see them in action again so soon. He punched a key on his desk. "Signal the Lovely Angel. The Computer has a job for them."

* * *

Bill sat at the controls of his ship, the Star Seeker. The Lovely Angel hung before him, a mere ten thousand kilometres away. He watched the screen, knowing she would open fire shortly. Yuri being with him did not seem to matter to Kei - she was going to blast them both to atoms.

A red indicator on his right started to flash. "She's firing!" Yuri cried anxiously. "Bill, take evasive action!" He ignored her pleas.

The scanner showed two inbound missiles. _She's not taking any chances, is she?_ Bill didn't voice his opinion, they would pull this off - he was sure.

The computer tracked the missiles and gave Bill a distance count – 5000 - 3000 - 2000 -

At 500 metres, the missiles began to blur and shift. By the time the computer registered them at 450, they were gone. The screen before him turned green, and the computer displayed - **Test Successful: Incoming Missiles Destroyed**.

Yuri squealed with glee as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "It works! Bill, you're amazing!"

He reached up and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. Turning towards her, a wide grin on his face, he remarked, "Did you have any doubt?" He hit the communicator. "Good shot, Kei. Looks like the dispersal screen works the way I figured. If it'll stop your firepower, it'll stop anything."

Kei's face popped onto a corner monitor. "I think we should try again. You know - best two out of three." She didn't appreciate not hitting her target. "I could lay it on REAL heavy this time."

Bill grunted a short laugh, which made Kei all the more flustered. "No, that wouldn't help. Once the field is charged, nothing can get through it. Who knows, we might even be able to tunnel through a moon with this, although that might be pushing it some."

"Sure, sure. I'll believe THAT when I see it. Anyway, stand by for docking, I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Right. This calls for a celebration." He broke the link and got out of the crash chair. He turned around, kissed Yuri on the forehead, and told her, "Beers and Burgers? My treat?"

THAT was about as far from what she had in mind as possible. She poked him in the ribs as he passed through the hatch.

He yelped and straightened up, bashing his head on the jamb. Rubbing his aching cranium, he turned around again. Yuri had her hands over her mouth, trying to hide the fact that she was having a giggling fit. He gave her a mock scowl. "Alright. Alright already. Champagne and Caviar. Better?"

"Better." She said as she pushed past him into the corridor. _Now it's my turn,_ he thought as he followed. Making as little sound as he could manage, he crept up behind her and smacked her on her rear. She gave a little squeak for his benefit, then turned around to hug him tightly. "You really are something, you know that?" she muttered as she rested her cheek on his chest.

"Yes, I know... But don't let that stop you from telling me again." he told her as he stroked her hair. _Hard to imagine we've gotten so close in the past few months_. is what he didn't say. They had known each other since a malfunction in his ships warp drive had blasted him here from the year 2090. He had been an experimental physicist then, and some of his ideas had not been too popular. The company he worked for had sought to have him killed, and they had been partly successful - they had sabotaged his experiment in warp travel by destroying the field integrity control links, which controlled his velocity. So - instead of travelling fifty light-years in an instant, it took fifty years and an eternity of personal hell as it affected his mind in strange ways. When he had come to in this era, Yuri went out of her way to be his first friend, and it had escalated from there, until now they spent a great deal of their off-duty time together.

The airlock slid open and Kei walked in on their embrace. "Ahem." she coughed as they noticed her. "Sorry to interrupt, but we've got a call from HQ. We're supposed to report to the Director's Office on the double."

Yuri looked up at Bill. He winked at her and turned to Kei. "A hundred credits says we can beat you there. Whaddaya say?"

"You're on!"

* * *

The monitor behind Goulet showed them the destruction of the ship. Kei and Yuri watched in mute horror as the incredibly tough Crusher ship melted under the assault. Bill stroked his chin in thought. The scene froze as the ship disintegrated. Goulet turned to them.

"Fortunately, they set a probe following them before they went in to examine it closely, or we wouldn't have any clue as to what happened to them. After the attack, the asteroid executed a warp."

The girls floundered at that - the warp engine had yet to be built that would transport a billion-ton asteroid. Bill, however, was not surprised.  
"Do you have a track on it? Where it jumped to?"

"Yes - the probe had a warp energy monitor on it. From the amount discharged, we have determined that it is now about two light-days away from the Epsilon Lambda system. At its' current course and speed, it will impact the second planet of that system in just less than three weeks." The second planet, Doros, had a population of almost one billion. If the asteroid was not stopped, they were sure to be completely wiped out. At the speed it was travelling, it would impact with enough force to almost shatter the planet. "Your mission is to intercept that ship and, somehow, prevent it from reaching Doros. If necessary, use atomics to destroy it. However, if it can be stopped or diverted, we would like to keep this device intact."

The Pair finally found themselves able to speak. "Yes, sir." was all they said - all that had to be said. They turned and left.

As the door closed behind them, Goulet motioned Bill to sit. "Doctor," he said as Bill lowered himself into a nearby chair, "I don't have to tell you about the gravity of this situation, do I?"

"Now, that's a rather poor choice of words, don't you think? Gravity is the cause of this mess, isn't it?"

Goulet groaned inwardly at the pun. _Those two must be rubbing off on him._ "Whatever you want to call it. Atomics won't be able to stop that thing, if it comes down to that. Do you have any ideas about what might?"

"Chief, you know what my contract says. I took this job on the condition that I was not required to produce weapons." In his first week back among the living, he had been abducted and 'requested' to produce a devastating new weapon for a Space Force mercenary. He had wanted no part of anything resembling weapons research after that. He looked up at the screen again. "Well, I think I can make an exception in this case. I'll have something for you within two weeks." _Unless that ship decides to alter course, that ought to be plenty of time._ He rose from the chair and headed for the door.

* * *

Ten days to go before impact, Bill signalled Goulet that he was ready to test his new prototype asteroid-smasher.

Back aboard the Star Seeker, Bill was making final adjustments to the control links to the device, which was strapped to the bottom of his ship. A rather cumbersome unit, it was half as long and about as wide as the ship itself. "But," Bill insisted, "it packs one Hell of a punch!" He closed the console and armed the unit. A dull whine permeated the ship – the fusion reactor was straining to charge the device, but within a moment things were quiet again. The new displays at his side told him that all was in readiness for the test. He engaged the thrusters and sped off for the asteroid belt, with the Angel following (just in case..).

He picked a piece of rock that closely matched the chunk he had designed this for, and instructed the computer to search for its center of mass. Almost instantly, a set of cross-hairs formed on his display. That was his target.

The computer took another two seconds or so to align the ship so that the axis of the weapon was in line with the asteroid, and then it informed its master that firing could commence. Bill fingered the trigger, and a multi-coloured beam erupted from the mouth of his invention. It struck the asteroid dead-center, and it was gone a second later.

The fusion generator started to whine again - Bill shut down the cannon before it could become fully charged. He signalled the director. "Test complete, sir. It should do the trick."

"Fine. Proceed to the Epsilon Lambda system immediately - we have been informed that someone is broadcasting from that ship."

THAT was interesting. "Any idea what the message is?" He altered course to put the Seeker and the Angel in line for the jump.

"No, but it can't be good, whatever it is."

"Right, we're on our way." He keyed a sequence into the computer.

Both ships jumped simultaneously.

They warped in about twenty minutes behind the rockship. The broadband communicator immediately began to pick up a signal. The video displayed an image of a man in his mid-thirties, with ratty, unkempt hair and a grease-stained coverall. He was speaking.

Actually, babbling was the word that best described it for Kei. "You never understood what I worked for! The Super-Drive could move PLANETS! But NOOOO, you didn't think it was needed! I'll show you all! I'll destroy  
Doros unless you recognize me for the genius I am! Is that too much to ask for the safety of an entire world? I don't want to do it, but you're FORCING me to! I..." Kei cut the signal.

Bill appeared on the screen before her. "And you thought I was a real weirdo, eh?" He had an infuriating smirk on his face.

"It still holds. You're a total pain! This guy's just got a few screws loose!" She looked at Yuri. "Line us up to dock - I'll go in for him."

Bill got serious for a moment. "Be careful, Kei. A basket case like that could be real dangerous."

"Don't worry... He's as good as caught." There was a dull thud as the Angel made contact with the rockship. She entered the airlock fully suited up, gun in hand. The outer door slid open...

The crevice that was supposed to be a door wasn't. Kei used a torch to burn through nearly a meter of rock before she was into the ship. It was very uncomplicated, and she made her way easily to the control centre.

The man was still in the seat, babbling on. "I'll show you! I'll show you ALL! With this one act, I'll make the Super-Drive a part of history! And Doros will be part of that, as witness to my greatness! I'll ..."

"What you'll do is stop this thing before it hits Doros, fella! I'm with the WWWA, and YOU are under arrest!" Kei had her gun pointed at his head as he swivelled to face her.

A look of recognition crossed his face. "The Dirty Pair, eh? You shall witness my greatness, too." He touched a key on his chair. "And you shall not thwart me." A laser beam chopped him in half and wrecked the controls. _Damn!_

Kei raced back to the Angel. "Yuri, get us clear! Bill, it's time to test your gun for real! As soon as we're away!" She dove into the airlock and the Angel sped off.

Bill armed the cannon again. Again that pitiful whine of the straining reactor filled the ship. Kei was screaming at him through the commline, "Hurry, dammit! In a few more minutes Doros won't BE anymore!"

 _Damn, the target is off!_ "Right. Here goes nothing!" He hit the switch with all his might.

Once again the deadly beam sprang from the belly of the Seeker. It struck the ship not quite where it should...

The flash was blinding. When he recovered enough to see again, there was no trace of the asteroid, except...

 _Oh, No!_

"Bill, can you stop it?" The fragment was still headed towards Doros at a deadly velocity.

Bill was dumbfounded. "No. The cannon won't charge in time. You'd better try to catch it."

But by then the fragment was in the atmosphere. _Oh, PLEASE.._ Yuri prayed.

It struck in the middle of the largest continent. Between its size and its velocity, it had the destructive force of a hundred-megaton fusion bomb. All life for two hundred kilometres was extinguished instantly, and a crater formed almost a kilometre deep.

"Ooops." Bill muttered.

"Here we go again." thought Kei aloud.

"At least we stopped most of it." Yuri tried to see the bright side.

Bill grinned over the commline. "Well, it COULD be worse."

The two girls stared at him. "How?" they asked as one.

He snickered. "It could have been YOUR fault!"

They sped home to face the music.

 **-FIN-**


	3. The Telaran Incident

**The Telaran Incident**

"This is your captain speaking. We are completing the final preparations for our Warp Jump to the Telaran system, home of the famous Divoran Aurora Asteroid Field." Captain Williams never did like this run; he always ended up acting as a tour guide. "The system is known galaxy-wide for its startling electromagnetic displays when certain asteroids align, which happens once every four years. The alignment causes the Solar Wind to become excited, which results in truly spectacular displays - they can be seen all over the system, and have been known to last for several days. We will be arriving during one of these alignments, and I have been requested to fly us through one of these displays in order to gather data on them for the Alvara Research Corporation. I assure you that there is absolutely no danger in this, and you will be able to take Image-Scans of the display as we pass through it. We will be Jumping in five minutes. Thank you for your attention and enjoy the flight." He clicked off the intercom and drew in a breath. "Honestly, Dack, I'll never understand why those Alvara guys wanted to use THIS flight to collect their data. One of their cruisers could do it better - we don't even know what it is they're up to with that shit in the lower aft cargo bay."

Dack Jordenson, his co-pilot, shrugged. "Beats me, Vard. I have enough trouble keeping this heap in space, much less have time to keep up on Alvara scientific dispatches. They must have a good reason, or else they would have done it themselves.. wouldn't they?"

Williams sighed and looked out the window. The starscape was an awesome sight, but he saw nothing inspiring. In fact, the stars had taken on a dull bleakness ever since he took this job. He had wanted to be an explorer, not a shuttle pilot and system narrator. "I guess. But that doesn't make me feel any better about it. All this top-secret crap just gets to me sometimes, ya know? They wouldn't even let our own cargo handlers work with them. The stuff was brought in sealed, and they used drones to stow it. Not only that, but all this was done when the ship was still in the maintenance bay - late at night, even, when nobody was around."

Dack frowned. "You don't suppose it's something dangerous, do you?"

"Beats me. All I know is what they show me from the manifest, and that ain't squat. The printout says 'Classified - Experimental Equipment' and that's it. The Alvara reps don't talk to shuttle jockeys like me, and the flight director's in the dark, too." The computer beeped for attention. "Time to jump, Dack. All systems read go. Navscanner shows a clear flight path."

"All monitors green, sir." Dack was all business when it came to Jump Time. "Field flux nominal. Reactor output stable. Flight dynamics within tolerance levels."

"Here we go, then. Jump... NOW."

There is a moment in time that is so short that it cannot be measured. In this short span, a starship equipped with a Jump Drive crosses the immense gap between the stars, much the same way that an electron jumps from one stable energy state to another without crossing the gap in between those states. The warp field energized, and they were in the Telaran system, the Divoran Field just ahead of them.

Williams activated the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Telaran star system. We are just about to enter the Divoran Field, the alignment should take place any moment now. If you look out the port observation panels, you should be able to see the discharges take place."

Every passenger tried to crowd to the panels for a look. The first two of the asteroids were just coming into alignment. As they lined up, they began to glow with an orange and red aura. As more of the bodies came into line, the glow brightened, until the automatic filters dropped onto the panels. Bolts of energy leapt from body to body, until the area was a network of flashing lightning discharges.

Williams gaped at the display. _They actually want us to fly through THAT?_ He looked down at the cabin monitor, and spoke over the intercom again. "Ladies and gentlemen. If you would please take your seats and strap in, we will begin the passage through the aurora. Again, be assured that this action will be completely harmless; you won't even notice it."

The ship slowly spun on its axis and a short burst from its main drive motors set it moving into the cloud. Shortly, red flame and bright electrical arcs were dancing about the hull.

In the control room, Dack looked about nervously. "There's an awful lot of energy spinning around out there, Vard. Are you sure that this is such a good idea?" "How the hell should I know? I'm no engineer, I just fly this crate. I think they would have told us though, if..."

He got no further. At that instant, a bolt struck the forward windshield, disintegrating it. Dack and Vard were blown out into the void, screaming curses at everything in general, until the air was sucked out of their lungs, and their bodies were torn asunder by the forces around them. Another bolt struck the aft of the ship, overloading the main reactor and breaching the magnetic containment field. Alarms began to blare in the cabins as bulkheads sealed themselves off. The signs in front of the cabins did not tell the passengers what happened, but alerted them that the ship was about to activate its last-ditch emergency procedure... the passenger cabins were going to be ejected from the main body of the ship. Each cabin was a self-contained lifeboat, good for three weeks of full life support, and each was equipped with an emergency beacon to aid in rescue.

Several children were crying as the bulkhead doors slammed shut and the explosive bolts activated. The ship suddenly became four parts, three of them firing small reaction motors to push them away from the derelict that had but minutes ago been a passenger liner.

* * *

The WWWA research facility was a frenzy of activity.

Director Goulet walked with Kei and Yuri to one of the main labs. They were discussing their latest case.

"All we know for sure," Goulet was saying, "is that the Alvara Corporation is desperate to get its equipment back. Whatever it was they had in mind, ordering a passenger liner to enter the aurora like that, they won't tell us." They turned down a corridor and headed towards a lab with a radiation warning symbol on the door. "Your job is to help retrieve whatever equipment is still functioning there, and find out what it was the Alvara labs wanted with the information."

"Fine, fine." Kei yawned. "But I still don't see why we need to bring along a techie to help us. They always seem to get underfoot when the going gets heavy." The last technician they teamed up with had almost cost them their lives as he tripped over his own feet in a fight, trying to get away.

They entered the lab and tried to look unimpressed. The labs in this area were the most sophisticated in the galaxy, owing to the fact that they had the finest minds working in them, and money was no object - the best research for the general enrichment of life.

All the technicians looked up and jumped. "Director Goulet!"

The trio stopped by a monitor. It showed a figure in an armoured spacesuit entering a room through a metal door a half-meter thick. A second monitor, nearby, showed the interior of the room. There was a number displayed in the corner. "What does that mean?" Yuri pondered, pointing at the four-digit figure.

One of the techs answered. "That's an indication of the amount of high- energy radiation in the room. X-Rays, Gammas, that sort of thing."

 _Four figures?!_ "What does that fool think he's doing?!" Goulet was turning red as he leapt for the console microphone. "Get out of there! NOW!"

A garbled laugh came over one of the speakers. "Calm down, boss. It's all part of the test. I'll be out in a minute." Through the cameras, they could see him turn around and head for the shield door. They watched the door close and the radiation counter drop to zero. A doorway to their left slid open, and the figure stepped out. It was then that they noticed things that the camera didn't show.

The helmet had no visor. It was completely solid and unbroken. They were also having trouble seeing him clearly, as though they were looking at him through a film of oil. Parts would be clear, but then would shift and change shape slightly. He raised his right arm and pressed a button on the keypad embedded into the sleeve. Almost immediately the distortion vanished. He spoke again.

"Mister Director. Ladies. This suit has a built-in radiation screen. I was testing it to see how much energy it would block. So far, the field will not break down, even under the hardest radiation we can produce." His hands went to the helmet, gave it a half-turn, and lifted it off his head.

Yuri jumped for joy when she saw who it was. "Bill!"

He bowed his head. "At your service." He started to release the catches on the suit. As he shrugged it off, he looked at Goulet. "So, what brings you down to the dungeon?" His lab happened to be located in the lowest levels of the facility, beneath almost half a kilometer of solid rock.

"We have a mission we'd like your help on. Five days ago, a passenger shuttle bound for the third planet in the Telaran system suffered a major catastrophe. It was apparently ordered to pass through the Divoran Aura Belt in order to get some data on the effect by the Alvara Corporation. We don't know exactly why, but it was destroyed when some of the energy discharges struck the ship. Some of the passengers say that it was struck twice - once in the cockpit, and once near the reactor area. Now, Alvara says that it wants its data gathering equipment back, but they don't have the facilities for a salvage op. The Computer has given the job to the Angels, here, and I want you to accompany them. You might be able to tell us what kind of information they were after, and why they felt the need for such secrecy."

 _You might also be able to keep the body count down..._ He mused to himself. Every case where he had teamed Galet up with the Dirty Pair, there seemed to be less incidental damage than when the girls went out alone. He was almost considering asking the Computer to team them up permanently.

"Welll, I dunno. I've got a few projects on the boards here, and I might not be able to complete them if I'm dragged away."

Yuri was a little depressed at that. Bill was her best friend (next to Kei), and he was such fun to be with.

Bill saw her look and chuckled. "Just kidding. I can be ready to go in three hours." He winked at Yuri. "Your ship or mine?"

* * *

The Angel and the Seeker warped into the Telaran system almost simultaneously.

Goulet had insisted that they take both ships. Bills' ship had the more sophisticated scanning devices, the Angel had better weaponry, and nobody knew what they'd be up against.

What was left of the shuttles' the drive section, the remains of the control cabin, and the interconnecting struts that were all that remained after the passenger cabins were blown to safety - was slowly tumbling end over end. There was a gaping hole in the aft section where the main reactor used to be.

Bill watched his main viewscreen as it printed out the preliminary data. "Jee-ZUS." He gave a low whistle. "Look at that radiation reading. It's almost off the scale!" The enhanced image of the drive section was practically a solid ball of colour - virtually no detail could be made out because of the incredible amount of energy being leaked into space. He stood up and headed for the hatch.

"Yuri, take us in to twenty kilometers. Our screens will handle that much radiation safely, and I have to get ready to board that wreck."

"Bill, are you certain about this?" Yuri worried. "I mean, I know you've shown me how to fly on thrusters, but I don't think I'm ready to solo yet."

"Don't fret about it. The computer will be doing most of the work - all you have to do is tell it where you want to end up." He had most of the suit on already. "Besides, it's just like flying the Angel... the controls were standardized long before I was born." He added a jet backpack to his outfit.

The ship slid alongside the shuttle and stopped. The airlock opened, and Bill stepped out into the emptiness. The sensors studded about his suit gave him a picture on the inside of his helmet, enhanced to display through ultraviolet and infrared.

He activated the rad-screen and his suitcom. "Kei - hold position and continue monitoring. We might have to destroy the ship after I get finished inside, so have a couple of missiles armed and ready. Yuri – I'm going to head for the control room first. I'll see if the ship's flight recorders are in working order." They both acknowledged his transmission, and he hit the thruster controls.

He fell for thirty minutes before he arrived at the hole in the control cabin.

From what he could see from outside, there wasn't much left at all, much less in working order. He went in for a look anyway. "Looks like the aurora made pretty fast work of this place. Nothing worth salvaging here." He picked up the flight recorder - a pitted and slagged piece of scrap metal. "I'm going to head aft now. Yuri - We'll be out of contact due to the radiation by the time I get to the engineering section. I'll contact you again when I can."

"Take care, Bill." Kei's voice. "We don't have any idea what's in there, so no risks, OK?"

"You got it, darlin'. Back soon." He clambered out onto the hull and jumped.

The engine area was a hell of radiation. Bill called up a rad count. 500. An awful lot, but nothing that can't be handled. He killed the IR/UV enhancement and the images projected onto his retinas became readable again. But dark - he turned on his suit light and proceeded to the lower cargo bay.

The bay door was sealed. Plastered across it was a sign that read 'Alvara Experimental Equipment - Authorized Personnel Only. He broke the seal and opened the door. _So much for authorized_.

The bay was virtually empty. Tucked into one corner was a box that resembled a coffin, but about three times as large. _Why would they need a whole bay for THIS?_ His curiosity getting the better of him, Bill approached the box.

The readouts on the outside of the box gave him very little information. It gave a running rad count, outside ambient temperature, and inside data.

 _Inside?_

The readouts showed a breathable atmosphere and a comfortable temperature. _What the hell is going on here? Did Alvara want someone to be living in this thing?_

Walking around the device, he saw a window. It was closed, but there was a handle on it. He opened the cover and peered in..

"HOLY SHIT!"

* * *

Yuri picked him up on the scanner first. He was travelling very slowly, and seemed to be towing a large crate.

"Yuri. Open the cargo doors in the Tech section. Kei. When we're clear, destroy that derelict - nothing was salvageable."

"Bill, what's going on?" She had never heard him sound like this before, and she didn't like it.

"I'll explain when I get there. We're going to have to have a looong talk with those Alvara folks."

Bill guided the crate through the open doors, and started the pressurization cycle. Yuri met him in the corridor as he came out.

"Bill, what did you find?"

"Have a look for yourself. I need a drink." He shuffled towards the kitchen area.

She walked in and looked at the box. Except for the readouts, it was unmarked. She saw the window and looked in.

Her heart skipped a beat...

There was a little girl inside!

* * *

The shuttle disintegrated under the fury of Kei's assault.

She had put two Hyper-Explosive missiles into the engine area. The explosion was fierce, but quite sufficient - no need for atomics this time. _Bummer!_ When the derelict shuttle was gone, she lined up to dock with the Seeker.

She found Yuri and Bill in the aft area, going over their strange cargo. Bill had a portable scanner, and was running it over the instrument panel. "What's up?" she asked.

Yuri turned to look at her. "There's a child in there. Bill says she's alive, but in some sort of suspension. He's looking for a way to get her out of it now."

Bill stood up and closed the cover on the scanner. "I think I've got it." he said as he touched a section of the panel. The top of the box raised itself up a few centimetres, and slid out of the way, exposing the occupant for their examination.

She looked to be about six or seven years old. Her wavy blonde hair was about shoulder-length. She appeared to be naked, but closer examination revealed that she was wearing a skintight bodysuit the same colour as her skin. Her skin was the oddest colour, in any case - a pale blue-white, the shade of a very hot star. Bill opened his scanner again and ran it over her.

"Well, she's definitely alive. Whatever they did to her, it doesn't seem to affect bodily functions." He looked at another reading. "WOAH!"

Kei and Yuri looked up at him. "What is it?"

He almost couldn't explain. "She seems to be drawing in energy from all directions. It's not all that noticeable now, but she's even pulling power from the ships' reactor. Don't ask me how she's doing it, she just is."

A soft moan turned their attention to the child. She stirred and opened her eyes. She sat bolt upright, eyes wide, and shrieked. "MOMMMMY!"

The lights in the room dimmed and died. Emergency lights came on, giving the area a blue glow.

Bill checked the scanner again. "She's draining power at an incredible rate. The reactor can keep life support going, but we don't have the power to go anywhere. Amazing." He looked down at her.

The little girl was crying. "Mommy. I want my mommy." She looked up at Bill. "Have you seen my mommy?"

Bill smiled at her. "I don't know, honey, but I'll help you find her. Could you tell me your name?"

She rubbed her nose with her arm. "Kina. Kina Darax."

"Well, hello Kina. I'm Bill, and these are my friends, Kei and Yuri." He pointed to the girls and they both said "Hi!"

Kina looked around. "Where am I? Why is it so blue?"

Bill was a little reluctant to answer that one. He didn't know if this girl knew about her ability. "We're on my ship, Kina. The room is blue because something's draining our power. Do you know anything about that?"

She nodded. "Uh-huh. I'm doing it. I've done it for a little while."

She was standing up in the capsule now, Bill could look into her eyes without looking down. "well, Kina. Are you able to stop doing it? We'd like to help you, but we can't without power. Can you try? Please?"

She closed her eyes. A second later, the lights came back on, and the wall readouts started functioning again. "Okay. I've stopped."

 _Amazing. Simply incredible._ "Thank you, Kina." He picked her up and put her on the floor. "Kei, call HQ and request information on the young lady here. We're heading back, and we're going to find out why the Alvara people are doing this." He knelt down and held Kina's shoulders. "We're going to try to find out about you, Kina, so we can take you back to your mom, okay?"

She smiled at him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, before we do anything - you must be hungry. Do you like chocolate ice cream?" She nodded. "You do? That's great. C'mon." He stood up, took her hand, and led her into the kitchen.

Kei rested her hands on her hips. "Whatever I might think of him, he's good with kids." She elbowed her partner. "Give you any ideas?" she asked pointedly.

Yuri stuck her tongue out. "Go `way. We both have work to do." She spun around and strode towards the control room.

* * *

Kina had a voracious appetite. She had polished off three bowls of ice cream, and was starting on her fourth. She shovelled it into her mouth eagerly. She was finished minutes later. "I'm full now." she said, licking the chocolate sheen from around her mouth. "Thank you, Mister Bill."

Bill had to laugh at that. He remembered the Mister Bill from his own childhood - a clay figure that was always getting mashed. She looked up at him. "what's so funny?"

"Oh, just something from a long time ago; you wouldn't understand."

She turned her eyes to the floor. "Oh. Grown-up stuff."

 _Oops. You've done it now_. He cupped her chin and raised her head. "Nothing of the sort. Tell you what - when we get this over with, I'll tell you all about it. Deal?"

She smiled again, a big toothy grin. "Deal." She looked at him thoughtfully. "I like you. You're different from the other adults. I bet my mom would like you, too."

"I'd like that. Tell me, why am I different from other adults?"

"You're nice to me. You don't hurt me with things, needles and stuff. The others did. They took me away and hurt me."

"Kina. These people that hurt you: Are they the ones who put you in that box?"

She wasn't crying, but he could. tell she wanted to. _Strong kid_. "Uh-huh. They wore funny-looking suits, and they said it was a `speriment - to see if I could `tract lightning."

 _So THAT was it! They were using her as a guinea pig for their experiments!_ "Kina honey, this is real important now. Did any of them say why they were doing this to you?" He was starting to have an uneasy feeling about this.

She thought for a moment. "No. But I did hear one of them saying somethin' about du.. dupe.. dupil'cating it, so's they could use it themselves."

She stretched and yawned. "I'm sleepy." she told him.

 _No doubt_. "All right, Kina. You stretch out here." He grabbed a small blanket from the closet and draped it over her. "Comfy?" She nodded. "Good. Have a good sleep." He turned out the lights and closed the door. He turned into the control room. Yuri turned around to face him as the door slid shut.

"Is she all right?" Children always seemed to bring out her protective nature.

Bill smiled. "She's napping. She told me that the 'good' folks at Alvara have been using her in their experiments, trying to see if they could duplicate her ability. She kept talking about needles and pain."

"Do you think they did something to her?" "I'd be willing to bet that this ability of hers was partly there to begin with, and they used drugs or DNA splicing to enhance it. That probably accounts for her unusual skintone, too. Signal my lab - I want a full team ready by the time we land." He turned and opened the hatch. "I'm going to have another look at the device we found her in."

Yuri bit her lower lip and rolled her eyes theatrically as she punched the proper codes into the Seekers' computer. _He's on a crusade again_ , she sighed to herself. Every time something like this happens, he gets one of those moods.

After relaying his message to the lab, she smiled. _Those Alvara people don't know WHAT they're in for!_

* * *

They almost didn't need the technical team there; Bill had a great deal of information ready for them by the time they landed.

"It appears to be some kind of energy selector." He was telling Goulet. "The main body of the equipment is for the suspension capsule, but the rest is used for amplifying Kina's power-draining ability and using it selectively. I would venture to guess that it was designed to specifically attract the energy of the Aurora."

Goulet knit his fingers together as he placed his hands on the desk. "So you think that the researchers from Alvara were responsible for the destruction of the shuttle?"

"I'd be willing to put money on it. As a matter of fact, I'd bet that they KNEW what could happen, and used the shuttle so they wouldn't lose one of their valuable research ships. In which case, they're also guilty of the murder of the two crewmen." Goulet nodded silently, and Bill added, "What news of finding Kina's family?"

"The Computer's working on it - it may take a while." After all, three thousand colony worlds is quite a lot of information to scan through.

"All right. If you need me, I'll be in the lab. I'm trying to find out just how much Kina's been changed by those butchers."

* * *

He entered the lab to the sound of Kina screaming.

"Don't touch me! Where's Bill?! I want to see Bill!" She was backed up against a cabinet, surrounded by three of Bills' assistants.

"Just WHAT do you think you're doing?" He nearly spat the words out.

As they stood up, Kina broke through the circle and ran to Bill. She wrapped herself around his leg and cried. "They were going to hurt me! You promised they wouldn't hurt me!"

He picked her up and she put her arms around his neck. "It's OK, Kina. I meant what I said, nobody here is going to hurt you. We want to see if we can help fix what those other people did to you, OK?"

She sniffed back her tears and looked at him. "OK."

He sat her on the table and turned to one of his aides. He asked for a hypo.

Kina shrank back - she knew that word.

Bill smiled at her. "Don't worry, Kina. This one doesn't hurt - I swear." Just to show her, he placed the tip on his arm and pulled the trigger. There was a hissing noise, and he showed her the reservoir that now held a sample of his blood. He rolled up his sleeve and showed her the spot where he had used it. "See? Not even a mark." He replaced the used vial with an empty one. "Now your turn. Want to try it?"

She held out her arm in silence. _Can't blame her for being scared_. Bill pondered as he placed the tip on her arm. He pulled the trigger.

She giggled. "It tickles. Can we do it again?" She felt much better about being there, now that she knew Bill wasn't lying.

"Maybe later." Bill removed the vial and gave it to the assistant on his left. "I want a full-spectrum test done on that - DNA composition, molecular alteration, chemical instability. Also check for nanomachines." Nanomachines were relatively new; a way of altering cells from within by introducing devices that literally rebuilt them from the nucleus out. The aide left and he turned back to Kina. "Now, honey, I'd like you to lie down here so I can take some pictures of you, alright?"

She lay down on the table as Bill wheeled a large scanner towards her. He switched it on and gaped at what he saw..

* * *

"This is THE most BORING part of this job!"

Kei felt insulted. Going over computer records was not what she had in mind when they joined the WWWA. "I'm a Trouble Consultant, not a damnable office clerk!"

Yuri looked up from the monitor in front of her. _Here we go again_. "But Kei, this is just as important as every other part of the job." _Just not as fun_. "Investigation is more than shooting the bad guys."

Kei got out of her chair and did a couple of deep-knee stretches. She imagined she could hear the muscles of her back creaking. "Yayaya, I know, I know. But that doesn't mean I have to ENJOY it! Going over all the missing persons reports for the last two years is a lot of sitting. My ass is gonna get fat!"

Yuri got up, walked over to Kei, and patted her hips. "You mean fat-TER, don't you?"

"Bug off! I don't put it away like you do, girlie!"

Yuri snickered and turned back to the job at hand. She almost missed the file on the screen. "Kei! I found something!" She requested a printout, and tore it from the printer almost before it was finished. She ran for the door before Kei could figure out what was going on.

* * *

"Kina Darax: Born October 25, 2135 on Planet Taluras. Missing eighteen standard months." Goulet put down the report. "We've signalled her family. Her mother, Mrs. Kelly Darax, will arrive in five days to pick her up."

"Any mention in there about her 'ability'?" Kei hadn't had a chance to read the report, and was in the dark more than the others.

"Apparently," Goulet began, "there was some small indication that she could drain energy from equipment as far back as four years ago. Her parents found that battery-operated toys wouldn't work for long. They asked the Alvara Corporation to examine her..."

"And they later kidnapped her for their own research." Yuri finished. "Nice people. They must have enhanced her ability, so they could study it better. I wonder how they did it?"

"I can tell you that." Bill said as he entered the room. He had Kina with him. Her skin was a healthy shade of pink, and she was wearing a blue coverall and a brown sweater. "They implanted a small neural booster behind her ear. It amplified the brainwave patterns that cause the draining effect. They also introduced nano-constructors into her bloodstream - they were in the process of reconfiguring her DNA structure to enhance the effect naturally. They were almost successful: In a few more days, their task would have been completed and they would have had a living energy sponge at their disposal. The constructors could then be extracted, and introduced into other host bodies to reproduce the effect in others. Given enough people with this capability, they could, quite effectively, absorb all the energy of an entire planet, and bring it to a grinding halt!"

Yuri knelt in front of Kina, and looked behind her ear at the small scar that marked where the implant was. "Is she...?"

Kina squeezed Bills' hand tighter. "I'm all better now."

Bill smiled down at her. "Yes. You are." He looked up to Goulet. "I managed to reprogram the constructors. They had kept a record of her original genetic pattern - I altered their programming so that they used that instead of their main program instruction, which was a gene-by-gene realignment of her body structure. That took only about an hour - those things are fast little buggers - and I took them all out. The implant is gone as well, and I did a bit neater job than Alvara did."

Goulet looked at Kina, then at Bill. "Good. It seems your job is done in this matter."

"Not quite."

The voice startled them. They turned to the door to regard the speaker.

He was a middle-aged man, Bill figured him to be about forty. He was wearing a grey-green jumpsuit with the Alvara logo on it.

"Director Goulet. My name is Alex Torrinson. I've come to retrieve our equipment, which you salvaged from the wrecked shuttle."

Bill stared at him disapprovingly. "You mean, you want Kina back." He pulled Kina closer to him, and she gripped him around his hips.

Torrinson sneered. "Yes. Her, and the equipment she was placed in. The Corporation has a great deal of time and money invested in studying this childs' power, and we aren't about to give her up easily."

"You slimy bastard!" As one, Kei and Yuri went for him.

He took a step back. "Call off your Dirty Pair!" he cried, "Or I'll have you brought up on charges!"

Bill put his arm out. "Stop!" They halted mid-stride. "Kina stays here. You have enough data in the constructors to duplicate the process in your labs."

Bills' adversary smiled. "Yes, quite enough, I suppose. Very well, the child will stay, but I want the constructors and the capsule. At ONCE!"

"Fine. They're in my lab. Follow me." He asked Kina to stay with Goulet, and the four of them headed to the lab. When they got there, Torrinson became incensed.

"Where's the capsule? You told me the capsule would be here as well!"

"It is. But I have a little business to take care of first." At that, he gave the man a fierce right cross to his nose. Torrinson fell backwards into a chair, where restraining straps snapped into place, pinning him there.

He looked at his arms, strapped securely to the chair, then at Bill, who was extracting a hypo from a drawer. "What are you doing? You can't do this to me! I'm a representative of the Alvara Corporation!"

Bill placed a small vial in the hypo. "Oh, I'm going to give you a taste of your own medicine." He showed him the hypo, waving it a mere inch away from the mans' nose. "I have a couple of your constructors in here. You want Kinas' power so much, I'm going to give it to YOU!" He pressed the hypo to his victims' arm. "Just relax. This won't hurt... much."

Torrinson lost control. "Please... Please." He began to cry. "Don't do this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I won't do it again! Just don't shoot me full of those things! You don't know what they'll do to me!"

Bill sneered this time. "But you have no qualms about pumping a little girl full of them. They can't be that bad." He pulled the trigger.

"NOOOOOO! EEAAAAgh..." The man was out like a light.

Kei was on Bill in a flash. "Just what did you have in mind, there? You accuse them of butchery, then do the same thing on them!?" She had him by his collar.

He raised his arms in surrender. "Take it easy, Kei. It's just a sedative. He'll be asleep for about five hours." She released him, and he turned to gaze at the sleeping researcher. "I don't think he'll be bothering Kina anymore - or any other children, for that matter."

Yuri looked at him approvingly. "well, it was a TAD on the corny side, but I think he got the message."

They left him strapped there as they went to celebrate another job well done.

 **-FIN-**


	4. One Last Blast

**One Last Blast**

A beam of pure hellfire erupted from the belly of the ship.

It struck the asteroid not quite at its center, obliterating all but one small fragment, which fell to the planet below with devastating force. It created an immense fireball which spread for almost a hundred kilometres, and snuffed out any living thing caught within a much larger area.

But he did not witness the destruction as it occurred. Rather, he was watching a holo-tape reproduction of the event. As the tape played to its end, he was muttering under his breath.

"Such power." he said to no one in particular. "Such destructive energy. Never in the history of warfare has there been a weapon of such purely devastating potential. It makes my own arsenal seem petty and worthless by comparison. Amazing..."

The tape ended, and the projector froze on the requested image, that of the ship that had performed that feat. He turned his chair around to face his desk, and activated his office intercom.

"Miss Adams, I want you to get me full operational data on a certain spacecraft, and a complete dossier on whoever owns it."

"At once, sir." came the slightly artificial reply.

"Good. The name of the ship in question is..." He touched a key, and a magnified image of the front of the ship floated before him.

"...The STAR SEEKER."

* * *

Kei and Yuri were on their way to the firing range.

Although there was really no need for them to practice their marksmanship (they practised all the time on missions), WWWA regulations clearly stated that all trouble consultants had to have a minimum of time spent on the practice range - and they were far below that required minimum.

They signed in at the range office and made for their preferred choices. Yuri picked a pistol that looked more like an antique Colt .45 projectile gun than a laser pistol, while Kei slung her 'dream' gun over her shoulder - a Neutral-Particle Projector whose size suggested that it be mounted on a hoverJeep rather than being carried.

"You know, Kei, I don't think you'll really ever get a chance to use that monster anywhere except here." Yuri told her partner as she poked an elbow into her ribs.

Kei almost lost her balance at that, the cannon threatening to topple backwards at any second. "Sure, sure." she grunted, "But it DOES feel good, watching those great big targets getting turned into little piles of dust when I pull the trigger." _While I imagine that they're some of the creeps we've put away over the years._ She dropped the monster onto its bipod and sighted...

From somewhere behind them, a pencil-thin bolt shot onto the range. It struck the 500-meter target, there was a blue-green flash, and the target was gone. No smoke, no debris - just GONE!

Kei was beside herself with fury. "Who the HELL did that?! What KIND OF GUN did that!?" _And where can I get one?_ She whirled, ready to kill, and saw the shadow advancing towards them.

Who?

A lighthearted chuckle greeted them. "Afternoon, ladies." He hefted a machine-laser-sized weapon with a VERY strange-looking emitter cone.

"BILL!" That was Yuri. Her eyes sparkled as she recognized the voice. She ran towards him as he went to place his gun on a nearby table. "What are YOU doing here? And what is THAT? I thought you didn't do weapons!"

"Slow down - one question at a time.. I - WHOOOOF!" Yuri collided with him and they both tumbled to the ground in a tangled mass of arms, legs, and hair.

Kei stared scornfully at their semi-public display of affection. "If you're QUITE finished.." She had nothing against Bill personally, but Yuri was fawning over him like a lovesick schoolgirl, and that she didn't approve of. _Unless it's ME doing to fawning..._ "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

Bill got disentangled enough to lever himself up on his elbows. "I try." he laughed, giving her a grin, "Can't let myself get into a rut, now, can I? Helps keep others on their toes too, eh?"

"Rrrrrrgh" she growled, for lack of something scalding to say. He was right, and it seemed to work for him, but there was no way she was going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her admit defeat.

He straightened up and helped Yuri to her feet. "ANYway, I heard you were coming here, and figured I'd give you a thrill." He grasped the gun he had carried in and showed it to them. "It's a little something I started on after our encounter with that space-case in the rock-ship. You remember that one, don't you?"

They remembered. Some yahoo had designed a space drive capable of warping asteroids from system to system, and had decided to prove its worth by destroying the planet Doros with it. Bill had created a super-weapon to stop it. But while it turned most of the asteroid to sub-atomic dust, one large fragment had survived, and had struck the planet, killing millions.

"Well, I wanted to see if I could develop something to use as a defence against similar circumstances. This is the prototype." He handed it to Kei. "It has a range of almost a kilometre, and can completely atomize a target massing up to a hundred tons. Larger ones, based on the same design, would be effective for defending planets against any conceivable threat, including falling asteroids." He winked at Kei. "Merry Christmas."

"For ME? Are you SURE?" Kei was thrilled. The man was handsome, talented, AND generous. If he hadn't been involved with Yuri, she would have made a move on him herself.

But Yuri was pouting. Bill gave her a playful smirk. "Awwwww – no new toys for little Yuri?" He dug into his pocket, and produced a device the size and shape of a disc-recorder. He flipped its switch. "Kei, try firing at that target." He pointed to the 800-meter mound. Kei aimed and pulled the trigger..

Nothing happened...

 _What? It worked for him.._ "Some new toy. Damn thing doesn't work!"

"Sure it does." He flipped the switch in his hand a second time. "Try it now."

She carefully aimed and pulled the trigger...

The thin orange beam erupted from the gun, obliterating the mound in a flash of blue fire.

"Personal energy damper.. alters the flow of any electromagnetic current, including visible light. Prevents it from being used the way it's supposed to. Has an effective range of about fifty meters." He flipped it over to Yuri. "For you, my dear." he said as she deftly picked it out of the air. "Those will be issued to all criminal consultants in the near future, but you get to be the first on your block to own one."

That brought Yuri out of her mood. She smiled up at him. "Thank you, Bill. Now, I'll have to return the favour." She kissed him, Kei strategically looking the other way.

Bill laughed. "Just call me 'Q'."

Kei and Yuri looked at each other for a moment. "'Q' who?"

He sighed inwardly. Action-thriller movies had gone out of style, so few people knew of James Bond and his inventor-friend. "Never mind. I'll have to take you both to one of those video revival festivals one of these days."

* * *

Miss Adams handed him the file. "The dossier you requested, sir. The Star Seeker is a scout-size vessel. It's registered owner is a Dr. William Galet, one of the WWWA's top experimental development engineers."

That struck him as strange - research techs usually didn't require personal starships. But there was something else... "Galet. Galet. I know that name. Give me his personal data."

She scanned the noteboard. "Doctor William Daniel Galet. Age twenty-five. Recruited by the 3WA early this year, after... Sir, this can't be right - it says he was recruited after being involved in an accident which resulted from his experiment with a prototype for the first warp-style propulsion device."

 _So, it WAS him!_ He nodded. "That's correct. He was testing the first warp drive ever built. Fifty-one years ago. I remember my grandfather talking about him - a brilliant man. Would have been able to have his name mentioned along with Newton, Einstein, and others. But he had some ideas that he shouldn't have spread around, and his 'superiors' decided to have his experiment fail. They would have succeeded if Galet didn't build things so damn well." He stood up and strode out of the room. "I have to think about this. Think ...think..." he was muttering as the door closed behind him, leaving Miss Adams alone in his office.

"What's gotten into him, now? What's he got against that man?" She picked up the noteboard and looked through the file some more.

 _Oh. I see._

* * *

Bill slept on his couch.

He couldn't sleep on his bed unless he was practically dead on his feet. _With all the advances of this world, they STILL can't make a mattress that's both firm AND comfortable!_ The sofa was the only piece of furniture in his apartment that he could get a decent nights' sleep on.

Usually. Tonight was different.

Tonight he stirred restlessly as the images of his past crept into his subconscious to torment him again. Visions of his family - Janie, his sister-in-law, sister in all but biology - Mike, the nephew he had treated as a son. He first saw them as he had known them, Janie the dark-haired beauty - Mike the energetic nine-year-old. But no sooner did he enjoy the scene when it changed - they became old and frail. Then he imagined the shuttle crash that had taken their lives - the flaming arrowhead shape that burrowed into the ground, spraying bits of metal and plastic for miles around. In his tortured mind, he heard them screaming as the flames engulfed them, and the ground rose to crush them.

 _NO! Please! STOP IT! JANIE!_

"JANIE!" He screamed as he jerked upright, sweat beading down his nose.

Yuri chose that moment to walk in. She heard him scream, saw his terrified look. "Bill? Are you all right?" She sat down beside him and reached for his hand.

He pulled her close and rested his chin on her shoulder as tears began to form. "Oh God, Yuri. I saw it again. I had to watch Janie and Mikey die in that crash, and I was helpless! I wanted to help them, but I couldn't... I couldn't do a single damned thing!"

She absently rubbed his shoulders as she held him. "I know, Bill. It was just a dream. It's all right now. I'm here." She could feel him sobbing as she tightened her grip. "Everything is going to be fine."

He broke their mutual hold and looked into her eyes. "Thank you, Yuri. Thank you for being here for me. I never said that to you, did I?"

"You don't have to say it, Bill..."

"I DO have to. I never told you how much I appreciated you when we first met. When you told me how Janie and Mike died, I felt so alone that I would have died as well. You were there to help me through it - you supported me, you helped me start to live again. You'll never know how much that means to me."

"Bill, I..." she started, but something caught her eye. Out the window, from a nearby building, she noticed the telltale red glow of a laser sight.

Aiming into this room!

"BILL! Get down!" She yelled as she shoved him onto the floor. A second later the window shattered and a head-sized hole was blown into the sofa where they were just sitting.

Yuri, gun in hand, crawled to the window. She poked her head up, searching for the sniper. No luck. _Must have wanted only one shot. Pretty self-confident._ She sat down on the floor. "Bill, are you all right?"

"Oh, Jeez! Oh, man! That hurts!"

 _Hurts!?_ "Bill! Are you hit?"

"No, but I just bought that sofa, dammit!"

* * *

"Who would want you dead?"

Yuri had told Kei what had happened, and they went to Director Goulet with their report.

"Be damned if I know, boss. All the people who hated me enough to plot my death have to be dead by now - most of them were rather old when I knew them - in 2090. HyperTech's gone, so no grudges there."

"No family rivalries?" A slim chance, but one that had to be explored.

"None that I'm aware of. Everyone in my family was pretty well-liked."

Kei wrapped her finger in Yuris' hair. "Jealous ex-boyfriend or angry father?"

Yuri slapped Keis' hand away. "Right! REAL funny, sourpuss!"

Kei stuck her tongue out, then went on. "Maybe it wasn't meant to kill you. Maybe somebody wants to scare you or something."

Goulet nodded. "It's possible. But the questions remain - Who, and why?"

"And again, I can't think of anything. Someone may want me to keep the Quantum Thruster secret," his reactionless spacedrive was what had placed him here in the first place - HyperTech had tried to kill him to keep it from being used. "But that's already been released into the general market, so no-one would stand to profit from having me withhold information on it. Everything else I've developed has been released, with the exception of..."

"Your asteroid-smashing cannon." Yuri finished.

 _Oh, Damn!_ "But that's worthless to just about everyone - except maybe the Crushers, and they already have their own asteroid-smashers."

"Most of which are quicker to use and less power-consuming." Kei added. "On top of which, the Crushers don't steal technology or have people bumped off for it."

Bill shrugged. "Look, maybe it was just a case of mistaken identity. They wanted somebody else, but they got the apartment number wrong. End of problem."

Goulet looked unconvinced. "Perhaps. I admit, it sounds like a reasonable supposition, but let's take no chances. Bill, I'd like to move you to a safe zone for the time being. You'll have 'round the clock protection there, and in a few days we should know for sure if this was a mistake or not. Yuri, you'll escort him there and take first shift."

"Yes, sir. I'll see to it that he's well taken care of."

The trio turned and left.

* * *

He answered his intercom. "Yes, Miss Adams?"

"Sir. He's on the move. They are taking him to a safe house, where he'll be staying for several days."

He smiled. "Good. Everything is proceeding as planned. Thank you." He shut off the intercom and picked up a phone. He informed the person on the other end of the line, "Proceed with Phase Two."

* * *

The Spaceport hangar was dark and empty as the guard made his rounds. He looked around, yawning, when something bit him in the back of his neck. _Damn insects._ he thought as he rubbed the welt. As he was rubbing, his fingers grabbed something - he pulled it out and examined it.

It was a dart.

Seconds later, the drug took effect. Every blood vessel within his lungs burst open, and he collapsed onto the tarmac, drowning in his own blood. He did not see the two figures in the shadows trot into the hangar, nor did he see the ship that they had come to steal.

* * *

They arrived at the safe house in record time.

Driving like a proverbial bat out of hell, Kei wasted no time with such mundane things as traffic laws. Running lights, swerving and skidding, doing (Bill felt) Mach One, their car didn't have a single scratch on it, considering the fact that they had caused several pileups along the way. Yuri and Bill almost ended up in the front seat when she braked to a screeching halt at the end of the walkway. "Well, here you are. Home sweet home for the next week."

The small wood-sided bungalow looked somehow out of place, placed between shining skyscrapers of metal and glass. "Some home." Bill muttered. "You think the neighbours will mind that I snore?"

Yuri smirked at him. "Come on, don't be like that. It's only temporary, after all. Let's just make the best of it."

The two of them walked up to the door. Yuri opened a panel at its side and punched in a code. But, rather than the door opening, a small tube projected from the wall and sprayed them with smoke. Two seconds later, the floor dropped out from under them, but they did not notice - they were almost unconscious.

Kei saw them drop. "Bill! YURI!" She drew her gun and vaulted over the car as the earth below her started to tremble.

The house exploded!

Trying to protect herself from the shards of glass that rained on her, Kei looked up. She saw a trail of fire making for the sky.

It had been a trap all along! She signalled Mugi in the Angel to pick her up.

* * *

Bill stirred and looked around. He had a sinking feeling of deja-vu.

The room he found himself in was little more that six feet square. No windows. He saw a small air vent, and heard the steady throb of life-support machinery.

 _So, I'm on some spacecraft. What gives?_ Then he noticed the inert form beside him was stirring.

"Yuri! Yuri, are you OK?" This was starting to get ridiculous.

Yuri moaned and sat up. "What happened?"

Simple question. "It was a trap. The whole thing, I'll bet. Somebody went to a great deal of trouble to get us."

" **VERY GOOD, DOCTOR!** "

They both jumped at the voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once. "All right. So I'm bright. Who are you? And what do you want?"

" **ALL IN GOOD TIME, DOCTOR. MY MEN ARE COMING TO BRING YOU TO ME. BE PATIENT, AND ALL WILL BECOME CLEAR TO YOU.** "

"Oh, great. This is just wonderful. Makes my day complete. Trapped by another madman. Once wasn't bad enough. I wonder what this fool wants?"

The door opened and two guards walked in. "Hands at your sides." one of them said. "One funny move and you're dead!"

They put their arms to their sides, and the guard placed a small box on each arm. The boxes began to glow, and Bill found that he couldn't move his arms anymore. "Magnetic Force Bindings." he whispered to Yuri. "Do you have your new toy on you?"

"Yes, but I can't reach it. It's in my right-hand pouch."

"Okay. We can't try anything yet - I want to find out what's going on. We'll wait for an opportunity."

They were led to a plush office and thrown into seats.

Bill looked out the window onto a desolate, black landscape. _A moon-base._ he observed. _Might make rescue difficult._

Their captor entered the room. He was a heavy man, in his fortys, and he looked familiar to Bill. He spoke. "Greetings, Doctor Galet. It seems that we have an old score to settle."

Yuri was looking wide-eyed at Bill. "An old score? You're joking; I don't even know you."

The man laughed. "Of course not! But you know someone very close to me. Look closely at me, and remember."

He did. "Al? Al Davis? It can't be - you're supposed to be dead!"

Again the man laughed. "No, doctor. Not Al. Richard. I'm Als' grandson, and I run this place."

Bill looked at him sideways. "Fine. You run a moonbase. What's that got to do with me and this 'score' to mentioned?"

"My grandfather was sent to prison for killing you fifty years ago. He died there because of you. I intend to get even for that!"

"Get even? What are you talking about? Al sabotaged the Jump Drive I was testing. He tried to blow me to kingdom come! Don't tell me you're trying to rationalize what he did!"

"Hardly. What I AM going to do is make the Davis family proud again. You're going to give me your asteroid cannon, so that I can perfect it and sell it."

 _Not Again!_ "You're crazy! There's no way I'd give someone like you something that powerful! You'll see me dead before I'll help you!" _Geez! I'm doing it again! Too many movies!_

Richard chuckled. "Perhaps, but your friend here." He pointed his pistol at Yuri. "If you don't help me, I'll kill her. Death by vacuum exposure is long, painful, and not very pretty."

He had Bill. "All right. I'll show you how to operate the cannon."

Yuri was astonished. "Bill? Are you serious?"

At that moment, Bill noticed a tiny flash on Yuri's earring. He understood the signal. "But she comes with us. I want to make sure you keep your word and don't kill her behind my back."

Davis grinned. "Trusting soul, aren't you?" He signalled for the guards and they made their way to the landing bay.

Yuri looked at him while they were walking. "Bill, what are you doing? You're not going to give him the cannon, are you?"

He grinned at her and said, "Just wait," and started counting in his head. _Three...Two...One..._

The bulkhead ahead of them blew open with a trace of blue fire. Keis' voice bellowed "WWWA! FREEZE!"

In the confusion, Bill reached into Yuris' pouch and activated the energy damper. Instantly, their bonds were deactivated. He tore them off his arms and grabbed Yuri. "Come on! We're getting out of here!" They ran to where Kei was standing, blaster at the ready.

As Bill ran past, he said to Kei "What took you so long?"

She smiled and opened up with her brand-new tank-stopper. The orange beam lanced through the hallway, blasting the far wall into orbit. "Never mind that! Let's go!"

"He's still got the Seeker! We can't let him have it!"

"I know! The Angel came in right beside it! Now MOVE!" She shoved him between his shoulder blades and they ran for the hangar.

They made it to the hangar, but Davis had managed to sound the alert. They were met by a squad of guards. Both sides opened fire at once.

Yuri snatched the Bloody Card out of her pouch and heaved with all her might. Three of the five guards went down. Kei shot another. Yuri popped up to catch the card.

The remaining guard saw her and fired..

"YURI!" Bill cried as he dove for her.

He knocked her out of the way, but the laser beam lanced into his shoulder, almost severing the bone.

Kei took out the last remaining guard and ran to them. "Bill!" she shouted.

Yuri cradled his head in her hands. She was crying softly. "Bill, please don't die on me now. Not like this."

He looked up and smiled. "Not just yet. It's just a flesh wound." He gazed down at the hole in his arm. _Flesh wound - sure!_ "I'll be all right. Help me into the Seeker."

With Yuri supporting his right shoulder, and Kei behind him, they made it to the ship. A random shot had sealed them into the hangar, so they were home free.

Davis was screaming over the commlink. "GALET! I know you can hear me! I'll chase you around the galaxy for my revenge! I'll kill your girlfriend, too! It won't be nice, I assure you! I'll..."

Bill cut him off. He was shaking. "Kei. Get Yuri into the Angel. Get as far away from here as you can, as fast as you can!"

Yuri stared at him, her mouth wide. "Bill, what...?"

He was starting to punch the controls. "KEI! Get her out of here!"

But Yuri didn't want to leave. Kei solved that problem by picking up her partner and carrying her over her shoulder. She ran for the Angel.

The two ships took off together. They were a million kilometres away when Bill turned back.

Yuri was crying for him. "Bill! Don't do this! It's over!"

Bill's face showed sadness. "I'm sorry, Yuri. You heard what he said. It won't be over, ever - until we're both dead."

"Bill, please..." Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she fought to find the words.

He cut the connection.

"BILL!"

* * *

The Seeker rapidly grew in his screen.

Davis alternated between rage and panic. "He's going to kill us all! Fire! Throw everything we have at that ship!"

Missile batteries opened up in the rock. Hundreds of projectiles were launched towards their attacker, only to fade and vanish before reaching the ship.

Bill steadily accelerated towards the base. The missiles were not getting through - he could do what had to be done. He armed the cannon.

The protests of the fusion reactor were overwhelming. It had too many demands placed on it. It cut back on other demands.

The missiles started to get closer as the gun charged. Within moments, they were reaching to within ten meters of the ship. But he was almost there. He muttered to himself, "You want the cannon, Davis? Here it comes!"

At the last moment, he re-opened the channel to the Angel. He was seconds away from impacting the surface.

 _What to say?_

His ship started to tunnel into the base, the shield coming dangerously close to the skin of the ship...

 _Janie. Mikey. Forgive me._

"I love you, Yuri."

He hit the control...

The universe flared...

* * *

They saw the ship bury itself into the moon, where it exploded.

Seconds later, the entire planetoid was engulfed in a ball of fire.

"NOOOOOO! BILLLLLYYYYYYY!" Yuri wailed as she watched the searing image fade from the screen. When nothing was left, she covered her face and started to cry.

Kei was in tears, as well. She went over to comfort her friend. Mugi plodded over to do what he could, too. He was the one who noticed something strange on the scanner. He yowled and stuck his muzzle to the screen.

Kei, wondering what had gotten him so upset, turned to look.

It was very faint, but it was there. She screamed and grabbed Yuri.

Yuri recognized the signal, too.

An old-style emergency beacon!

Boosting the Angel to its limits, they streaked over to where the Seeker drifted...

* * *

This time, he spent two months in Intensive Care.

When he was put in Recovery, Yuri was with him every day until he woke. Bill came to with a throb in his shoulder and a weight on his chest.

His vision was blurred, but he knew who would be there. "Yuri.."

"Hi, Bill." She lifted her head from his chest and smiled at him.

"Oh, boy. I've really done it this time, haven't I?"

"At least you're alive. What happened?"

"Stupid computer! It wouldn't let me kill it. Instead of blowing the cannon, it released it and jumped. I think it thinks too much."

Just then, Kei and Goulet entered the room. Kei had a big bouquet of flowers for him. "For being such a pain." She told him.

"Yeah, sure." He could tease her better now that she couldn't retaliate. "You're just sore 'cause you lost our bet. I DID tunnel into the moon with my shield, and it ticks you off no end, right?"

Kei crossed her arms and snorted. Yuri giggled. Goulet looked at him thoughtfully. "Well, I see that you're almost fully recovered here. Can we expect you to return to work soon?"

"You bet! Get out of here and back into the action again!"

They stared at him.

 _Whoops! If looks could kill!_ "Well, maybe not QUITE so much action eh?"

 **-FIN-**


End file.
